Japanese Software: Kingdom Hearts Tops For Second Week

The Square Enix PSP role-playing game Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep led weekly Japanese software charts for the second week in a row, tracking firm Media Create said this week.

For the week ended January 17, Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep sold 177,000 units, down from the prior week's two-day total of 446,000. On its release, the game, launched January 9, also was able to boost PSP hardware sales significantly.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep is a prequel to the 2002 PlayStation 2 game Kingdom Hearts, which launched the RPG series that mixes Disney and Square Enix characters. Square Enix has yet to announce a release date for the U.S. market.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii followed at number two for another week. The game has been near or at the top of Japanese software sales charts since its release on December 3 last year, and managed to sell 139,000 for this most recent week.

Three new titles launched that managed to break the top 10 during the period: Capcom's Wii light gun game Resident Evil: The Darkside Chronicles, Namco Bandai's PSP fighter Tekken 6, and the Nintendo-published DS adventure game Last Window: Mayonaka no Yakusoku, a sequel to 2007's Hotel Dusk: Room 215.

Dropping out of the top 10 from last week were Square Enix's Final Fantasy XIII, Pokemon Co.'s Pokemon Heart Gold/Soul Silver, and Sega's PSP game Phantasy Star Portable 2.

Below are Media Create's Japanese sales charts for the week ended January 17: